Putin’s Winter Games succeed ... with caveats

Will the 2014 Winter Olympics be remembered for athletes breaking records in their events or breaking through faulty bathroom doors to get to their events?

Performers in mirrored costumes form the Olympic rings under a fireworks display during the Closing Ceremony for the Winter Olympics at Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia, Friday, Feb. 7, 2014.
Chicago Tribune/MCT

Visitors to Olympic Park queue in line to get into the official Bosco store selling Sochi 2014 souvenirs. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Travelers walk past one of the light rail trains connecting the center city of Sochi, Russia, to the district of Adler and Olympic Park. The light rail is among the new infrastructure built for the 2014 Winter Games. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Visitors traverse a rainbow-themed path from Olympic Park to a nearby rail station in Sochi, Russia. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Security officers check the identification of visitors to the United States' country house at Olympic Park. Several countries have houses at the Olympics, some of which are open to the public. Team USA's house is not. The houses are gathering spots for team officials, sponsors and athletes' families to watch the Games or hold meetings. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

The Tulip Inn, one of the many rainbow-themed motifs inside Olympic Park in Sochi, Russia. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

A children's splash pool sits empty near the housing of Team Canada in the coastal Olympic village by the Black Sea. The hotels here, like much of the new infrastructure in Sochi, will be repurposed to become tourism attractions after the Olympics. Photo by Barbara Barrett/McClatchy

As seen from the light-rail train heading to Sochi, a security officer sits on a chair on a beach along the Black Sea. Among the thousands of security officers deployed for the Winter Olympics were officers and soldiers who stationed themselves alongside railroads and Olympic street routes. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Security was tight around Olympic Park in Sochi, Russia. A soldier, K-9 patrol and police officer assist with checking cars going into the Park. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

The Netherlands' orange bikes stand parked outside Adler Arena during the speedskating competition on a recent afternoon. The Dutch are devoted speedskating fans. Bicycles are used by athletes, family members and officials to get from the Olympic housing village to venues and around Olympic Park. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Visitors stand in line for hot dogs outside the freestyle skiing venue at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Snow melts on the hills surrounding Rosa Khutor Extreme Park in Krasnaya Polyana in Sochi, Russia. To the left is the halfpipe run, lit for the men's snowboarding competition. To the right is the moguls run. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Gondolas ferry visitors from lower elevations to higher-altitude Olympic mountain venues as the sun sets in Krasnaya Polyana in Sochi, Russia. The gondolas were among the infrastructure built for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic games. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Newly built hotels and storefronts - many of them empty - stand along a promenade in Krasnaya Polyana, the mountains region of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

A woman sells handicrafts at a booth within the media hotel cluster at the Winter Olympics. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Evidence of the recent construction is evident near athletes' housing in the coastal Olympic Village in Sochi. Photo by Barbara Barrett/McClatchy.

Bikes stand parked near the practice rink inside Bolshoy Ice Dome during the United States' men's ice hockey practice in Sochi, Russia. Athletes were given bicycles to ride to and from their housing villages and around Olympic Park. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

A few blocks from the media hotel cluster in the district of Adler, a waitress walks toward a table through the empty dance floor of a restaurant. Local businesses were eager to capitalize on the Winter Olympics. Some enjoyed more success than others. Photo by Barbara Barrett/ McClatchy.

Will the 2014 Winter Olympics be remembered for athletes breaking records in their events or breaking through faulty bathroom doors to get to their events?

The Sochi games wrap up this weekend and appear to receive mixed reviews among athletes, spectators and analysts from the readiness of the facilities to the product on the field of competition.

Overall, those involved or observing the games believe that Russia — and President Vladimir Putin — have pulled off a successful Winter Games, especially given the potential for terrorism in this politically volatile region.

But the praise comes with caveats: the games’ $50 billion price tag, complaints of corruption, and the spate of bad publicity surrounding unfinished lodging accommodations, the killing of stray dogs, and the heavy-handed treatment of human and environmental rights activists by Russian authorities.

“Yes, Putin can say he pulled off a successful games,” said Janice Forsyth, director of the University of Western Ontario’s International Centre for Olympic Studies. “Oddly, because of the predictable way in which the games rolled out, with their construction woes, the corruption, the civic and human rights abuse, because all of this was known ahead of time, and because no athlete died at the games, the games can be remembered as being successful.”

Forsyth predicts that the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, will give the Sochi games their stamp of approval. It’s unlikely, however, he’ll go as far as former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who would close each Olympiad by declaring them “the best games ever.”

“The IOC will say there were some lessons learned but the games were generally very well run, and congratulate Putin for pulling off a feat of monstrous proportions,” she said. “The benchmarks for success are usually technical — the events were run on time, the venues constructed and operationalized, athletes competed as they should have with few injuries, the media was able to do their job, no major security issues.”

With only the weekend left for the Winter Olympics, analysts who expressed concern prior to the games about the country’s ability to contain or respond to potential terrorist threats give Russia high marks.

Most Americans believed that Sochi was rife for a terrorist attack given its proximity to Chechnya, site of two bitter civil wars and home to anti-Putin Muslim rebels.

A CNN poll earlier this month found that 57 percent of Americans believed that Sochi would be attacked.

Putin enveloped Sochi and surrounding areas in a so-called “ring of steel,” deploying more than 40,000 law enforcement agents, tightening security measures at transportation terminals, and increasing electronic and social media surveillance on Olympic attendees.

“I think it came off pretty well,” Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies said of the games and the security effort. “The Russians can be rightly, reasonably proud for pulling it off.”

Jeff Wells, a minister from St. Louis who attending his eighth Olympics, said he felt secure in Sochi.

“My family was worried, all the terrorism and threats and all that, but I’m a Christian, I believe God’s in control, so I’m not worried,” he said. “I feel very safe. Security has been very adequate without being burdensome. I like the layout of the park, and you can’t beat this weather. The Russians have been very friendly. They see out flag and they want pictures with us. This is what the Olympics is all about.”

Still, IOC officials may have a bone or two to pick privately with Russian Olympic organizers about the readiness of some facilities, particularly lodging. IOC officials earlier this week acknowledged that on the eve of Sunday’s closing ceremony that some hotels still aren’t completed. Jean-Claude Killy, the IOC’s chief supervisor for the Sochi games, said the committee first learned of potential housing problems in September.

“We realized it too late. All the alarms went off in September,” Killy told the Olympic News Service. “I made a special trip. I said, ‘What do we need to do?’ There is no way to organize a games if you cannot accommodate people.”

And some lodging that opened on time were substandard. Stories abound of shoddy workmanship, poor plumbing, and uncooperative doors. The quality of construction was crystalized by U.S. bobsledder Johnny Quinn of Denton, Texas, who had to physically crash through a locked/jammed bathroom door to get out.

IOC officials this week attributed some of the troubles to facilities that they say weren’t scheduled to open for the Winter Games, but had owners who changed their minds and unsuccessfully tried to accelerate construction.

“So, yes, there were some issues with the hotels, but we have to put it in the score of things then, secondly, some of the hotels are not finished today because they were not foreseen to be in the program to be finished here,” Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s technical director said Thursday

Some conditions at events weren’t ideal, either. Coastal Sochi’s subtropical climate — with temperatures in the upper 50s at Black Sea level — wafted its way up to mountain venues over several days and made some events and practices a challenge on slushy or melting courses.

Several snowboard halfpipe athletes complained about the lip of their course and soft snow.

“It’s kind of scary,” American snowboarder Taylor Gold said two weeks ago.

Russian Olympic officials resorted to using snow that was warehoused from last winter on the courses and had to obtain an emergency 24-ton shipment of salt in order to soften then refreeze some of the courses to make for better skiing.

While some athletes, including snowboarder Shaun White, had their gripes, others said the skiing conditions and facilities were just fine.

Matt Whitcomb, coach of the U.S. women’s cross country team said the cross country facility was near picture-perfect.

“It’s demanding, but it skis well,” he said. “ If we can come back here and race in Sochi again, I’ll be ecstatic. It would be a shame not to.”

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(Nathaniel Herz of the Anchorage Daily News and fasterskier.com contributed to this report.)